Small businesses ‘left behind’ in Budget 2025

The decisions of Government are locking people out of the city centre and strangling local retail, according to a Cork city business owner.

Carole Horgan of Best of Buds in Winthrop Arcade said that customers will have little incentive to make the journey into the city centre as more shops will close and businesses will go out of business following a lack of from Government in Budget 2025.

Ms Horgan said Tuesday’s budget announcement has proven that the Government is not listening to the needs of business owners in local retail who, she said, are making “a massive contribution to the GDP”.

“With the costs coming down the line of things we have a responsibility to deliver, our businesses can’t absorb any more and our city can’t absorb any more, and the Government is not listening to us,” she said.

“The Government is strangling retail to death and as a result they are strangling the contribution that we are making back to them in employment, in vitality in the city, and in contribution through our tax returns, our rates, everything.

“They are strangling retail in our city. They are locking us out of our city... I am just absolutely tired of it.”

Ms Horgan said that people are turning to online shopping rather than spending locally and said that while online shopping is how we live today, something will have to be done to protect local city centre businesses into the future.

“So often we are complimented on our shop and so many people come in and take photographs of our stock so that they can buy similar online,” she said.

“So, online is a reality and I think there should be greater taxes introduced for online shopping because that’s another huge thing we are competing with, online sales.”

Ms Horgan raised further concerns about the viability of city centre businesses if costs continue to soar, and reminded people that local retail is not just for Christmas.

“Local retail, city centre retail, is not only just for Christmas, like a puppy,” she said. “We have to survive all year round and we have 12 months of trading to do.

“Long term, it’s becoming more and more trying and difficult, and there are few incentives left for retailers in the city centre and I am very sad to say it.”

Carol Cashman of Cocoa cafe in the city centre also raised concerns about the lack of footfall coming into the city centre, which she said is coupled with rising costs, including the cost of chocolate which she said is leaving cafes with the difficult decision of whether to increase their prices or not.

“We’re really feeling the lack of footfall here in the city, certainly in the last year,” she said.

“We’re losing in a lot of ways and then the costs are going up on top of that as well. There was an issue with the price of chocolate recently, and obviously a lot of our products are chocolate-related so that’s been a big load for us too; and we’re trying not to the cost on, but there is only a minority who are willing to pay for a luxury product, so you’re trying to please the masses.”

Ms Cashman said the Government is underestimating small businesses and the numbers they employ, saying that something really practical needs to happen to them, but that right now businesses are left in a situation where they have to try to keep prices at a sustainable level while keeping the doors open.

Meanwhile, Jamie Budd of Budds Restaurant in Ballydehob said that further business closures, in rural areas in particular, will result in “ghost towns and lifeless streets” which he said nobody wants to see.

“Rurally you really see the tough reality of places closing because there isn’t a Starbucks or a Costa ready to pounce on that location, and it’s a lot harder to make a profit when you’re in the country, just because of the sheer population. So, when a place closes in a smaller town or village, the knock-on effect is far greater-reaching and has a much bigger lasting effect.

“The hospitality industry is such a huge cog in the wheel of socialising and creating energy in towns, villages, cities — they are the backbone of the whole operation. If there are places closing or places are too expensive, it has a massive ripple effect across the whole infrastructure of a place, and you end up with ghost towns and lifeless streets which nobody wants to see.”

Mr Budd said that while everyone wants to see people receive a fair wage, that there has been no give-and-take for employers with the announcement of the €0.80 increase in the national minimum wage which he said has a knock-on effect in the form of further closures or the cost being ed to the customer which he said is “pricing customers out”.

“The country is going to see an absolute tsunami of closures, up and down the whole county, and it’s very sad,” he said. “Everybody within the industry needs to really stand up now and fight the decisions and the incompetence of our leaders.”